a class apart, which does not aspire to be ever seen in good company. The pay of the common men is still only five sous a day, with a ration of bread and wine. They are allowed no meat, except when in active service.

What surprised me most, at the only review I was present, was to perceive the numbers of people who burst through the guards, in order to present their petitions. The emperor received them very graciously, and gave the petitions to a person who followed him with a large bag for that purpose.

Heaven alone knows what will be the end of this extraordinary man. He has great abilities unquestionably, nor are his talents for war unaccompanied by many such as could best fit him for the arts of peace. Rising from a private station, and covering his designs under seeming obedience to a government which he has trampled upon, when it ceased to promote his views, he has served all parties patiently for a while, and commanded them all victoriously at last. He has overrun every corner of Europe, and subdued, with equal ease, the poverty of the north and the riches of the south. He has made for himself a station among princes, and is not only adopted as a brother but counted as a superior by these gods of the earth.”*

But how has mankind been benefited by these phenomena which have risen up from among them? The pride of a great and gallant nation is humbled by the ascendency which their own servant has proudly assumed over them. Those barriers which separated one kingdom from another, and which served to secure the repose of the other nations of Europe, have been broken down; a wider field is now opened for the range of Ambition at the expense of the human race; and a death-stroke has been given to Liberty in every corner of the continent. Neither morality, meanwhile, nor religion, nor science, nor any useful art, has been promoted by those victories and that success which have been so much extolled; and that name which might have been transmitted to future ages with the blessings of a grateful posterity. will serve only, as Johnson says of Charles XII,

To point a moral and adorn a tale."

• Hume of Cromwell,

BIOGRAPHY-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GENERAL HORATIO GATES.

Concluded from page 484, vol. 11.

GATES was in a private station, residing on his farm in Virginia, in June, seventeen hundred and eighty. The low state of their affairs in the southern districts induced congress, on the thirteenth of that month, to call him to the chief command in that quarter. The state of affairs in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New-York, afforded sufficient employment for Washington, and Gates being the next in rank and reputation, was resorted to as the last refuge of his suffering country.

The efforts of the British in the southern states had been very strenuous and successful. Charleston, the chief city, had been taken. All the American detachments, collected with great difficulty, easily dissolved by their own fears, ill furnished with arms, and unqualified for war, by inexperience and want of discipline, were instantly overwhelmed and dispersed by the well-equipped cavalry of Tarleton, and the veterans of Rawdon and Cornwallis. The American leaders were famous for their valour, perseverance, and activity ; but these qualities would not supply the place of guns, and of hands to manage them. At this crisis Gates took the command of that miserable remnant which bore the name of the southern army, and which mustered about fifteen hundred men. A very numerous and formidable force existed in the promises of North-Carolina and Virginia. The paper armies of the new states always made a noble appearance. All the muniments of war overflowed the skirts of these armies; but, alas! the field was as desolate as the paper estimate was full. The promised army proved to be only one tenth of the stipulated number, and assembled at the scene of action long after the fixed time. The men were destitute of arms and ammunition, and scantily supplied both with the patriotism and courage of true soldiers.

Two modes of immediate action were proposed. One was to advance into the country possessed by the enemy, by a road somewhat circuitous, but which would supply the army with accommodations and provisions. Gates was averse to dilatory measures. He was, perhaps, somewhat misled by the splendid success which had hitherto attended him. He was anxious to come to action immediately, and to terminate the war by a few bold and energetic efforts. He therefore resolved to collect all the troops into one body, and to meet the enemy as soon as possible. Two days after his arrival in camp he began his march by the most direct road. This road, unfortunately, led through a barren country, in the hottest and most unwholesome season of the year.

During this march all the forebodings of those who preferred a different track were amply fulfilled. A scanty supply of cattle, found nearly wild in the woods, was their principal sustenance, while bread or flour was almost wholly wanting, and when we add to a scarcity of food the malignity of the climate and the season, we shall not wonder that the work of the enemy was anticipated in the destruction of considerable numbers by disease. The perseverance of Gates, in surmounting the obstacles presented by piny thickets and dismal swamps, deserves praise, however injudicious the original choice of such a road may be thought by some. In this course he effected a junction with some militia of North-Carolina, and with a detachment under Porterfield.

He finally took possession of Clermont, whence the British commander, lord Rawdon, had previously withdrawn. That general prepared, by collecting and centering his forces in one body, to overwhelm him in a single battle. Lord Rawdon was posted with his forces at Camden. After some deliberation, the American leader determined to approach the English, and expose himself to the chance of a battle.

Rumour had made the numbers of the Americans much greater than they really were in the imagination of the British. Cornwallis himself hastened to the scene of action,

and, though mustering all his strength for this arduous occasion, could not bring above two thousand effective men into the field. Nineteen, however, out of twenty of these were veterans of the most formidable qualifications. With the reenforcement of seven hundred Virginian militia and some other detachments, Gates's army did not fall short of four thousand men. A very small portion of these were regular troops, while the rest were a wavering and undisciplined militia, whose presence was rather injurious than beneficial.

Notwithstanding his inferiority of numbers, Cornwallis found that a retreat would be more pernicious than a battle under the worst auspices; and he himself, on the sixteenth of August, prepared to attack his enemy. General Gates had taken the same resolution at the same time; and the adverse forces came to an engagement in which the Americans suffered a defeat. The loss of the battle was ascribed with reason to the cowardice and unskilfulness of the militia. Among these the rout and confusion was absolute and irretrievable, and Gates had the singular fortune of conducting the most prosperous and the most disastrous of the military enterprises in this war.

Here was a dismal reverse in the life of Gates. His prosperous scale sunk at Camden as fast as it had mounted at Saratoga. There had been a difference of opinion as to the best road to the theatre of action, and the hardships and diseases which one party had foretold would infest the road which he took, actually exceeded what was menaced. A battle lost against half the number, in circumstances where the vanquished army was taken, in some degree, by surprise, would not fail to suggest suspicions as to the caution or discernment of the general.

Gates continued in command till October the fifth in the same year, about fifty days after the disaster at Camden. In this interval he had been busily employed in repairing the consequences of that defeat, and was now reposing for the winter. He was, on that day, however, displaced, and subjected to the inquiry of a special court. This inquiry was a

a tedious one, but terminated finally in the acquittal of the general. He was reinstated in his military command in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-two. In the meantime, however, the great scenes of the southern war, especially the capture of Cornwallis, had past. Little room was afforded to a new general to gather either laurels or henbane. A particular detail of those transactions in which he was concerned exceeds the limits prescribed to this hasty sketch. In like manner we are unable to digest that voluminous mass of letters, evidences, and documents by which the resolution of congress, in favour of his conduct at Camden, was dictated.

The capture of Cornwallis, which produced such grand and immediate consequences, swallowed up the memory of all former exploits, and whatever sentence the impartial historian may pronounce on the comparative importance of the capture of Burgoyne, and the surrender of Cornwallis, to the national welfare, or to the merit of the leaders, the people of that time could not hearken to any such parallel. They swam in joy and exultation, and the hero of York-town was alike with congress and with people the only saviour of his country.

If Cornwallis was encompassed with insuperable obstacles to retreat when his situation became desperate, and all sources of new supply of provision were exhausted; if he was surrounded by enemies more numerous than his own troops, such likewise were the circumstances of Burgoyne, and which ensured the assailants a victory in both cases. In Burgoyne's case these obstacles to retreat were partly forest and mórass, but chiefly consisted in the caution and la bour of Schuyler and of Gates. The mounds which enclosed Cornwallis consisted entirely of a formidable fleet of a foreign power, and the greater part of his assailants were foreign auxiliaries. Gates completed the destruction of his adversary, already half executed by his own folly, and by the skill and diligence of Gates's predecessors; but that plan by which Cornwallis was plunged into a desperate situation, VOL. III.